June 2012

See that, that’s booze that is, Otter Farm booze. Sparkling wine made from Seyval blanc grapes, picked October 2010. It comes from one of 314 bottles of the stuff.

It tastes rather lovely. Drink it straight after opening and it is as bright and lively as a sherbet dibdab, before the fruit kicks in at the end. Left for a few minutes before pouring and it seems lovelier, rounder. The temptation was to think it was just my imagination, so I asked Ulrich the winemaker if I was imagining things and he tells me not; it’s a sign that it will improve for a year or two as the sugar and fruitiness develops. He likes it, as he tweeted last August:

According to the analysis, it kicks in at 11.33%, and I can confirm its ability to open the chuckle valve most effectively.

Its journey has been long – four years, one month and three days from planting to the first cork popping. We picked the grapes that made this sparkling in autumn 2010, having been in something of a quandary about what to do with them as the harvest was small. Happily, Ulrich came to the rescue and has been entirely brilliant from the day we spoke.

Trent and I picked the grapes. Trent is now looking after a vineyard and making wine in the states but for a year and a half he was here doing a fine job and showing me his knob. So to him, huge thanks for working so hard on the vines and sharing that first harvest.

Here’s the film we made on the day we picked – apologies: somewone seems to have overdubbed a few ‘get ins’ and some Walter Brennan laughs. And I’m sure the few seconds after 8.32 proves Trent has a robotic arm.

If you’re interested in starting a vineyard, this should dissuade all but the rich/determined amongst you. Except that, of course, it doesn’t work like that – even with the memory of planting almost 300 new vines in a day with Paul (the new Trent) a couple of weeks ago fresh in the mind, even with the memory of all that work last year and no harvest, it seems worth it when that cork flies skywards.

With all this rain and cold, it’s uncertain whether flowering this year will be ok. If it’s damp at the end of June/beginning of July as it was last year, the little caps that sit on top of each tiny flower become stuck and can’t blow away – pollination is prevented, and there will be no grapes to follow. All the work for the year (other than the picking) is the same, the costs are the same, the attention and care is the same, whether you get to taste your fizz 19 months later or not. It is a gamble on the weather – when the vines get fully established we should get anywhere between 10000 and 15000 bottles year, but equally, we may get none. So when you do, it tastes mighty fine.